Thursday, January 27, 2011

Does the Constitution Cafe at the federal courthouse...

...serve unpitted or pitted olives? It's an important question. You see, if they serve unpitted olives, people may get hurt:

Dennis Kucinich is suing the Longworth House Office Building cafeteria because of a sandwich.
You want more? The friendly Cleveland congressman filed suit against a number of companies that supply and run the congressional eatery, because in 2008 he bit into a "sandwich wrap" of some kind and hurt his teeth on an olive pit.

According to the suit: "Said sandwich wrap was unwholesome and unfit for human consumption, in that it was represented to contain pitted olives, yet unknown to plaintiff contained an unpitted olive or olives which plaintiff did not reasonably expect to be present in the food prepared for him, and could not visually detect prior to consumption."


Kucinich claims he suffered "serious and permanent dental and oral injuries" and has sustained "other damages as well," including "suffering and loss of enjoyment."

Kucinich seeks $150,000 in damages. Gawker found video of Kucinich talking on the floor of the house five days after Olivegate, and he seems fine, but just as it's inappropriate to suggest that Jay Cutler was faking his injuries because he could briefly ride a bike on the sidelines, we shouldn't assume that Dennis wasn't suffering from an acute loss of enjoyment as he addressed the House.


Oh boy... Maybe this is why Obama hinted at tort reform during the SOTU.

What else do we have this morning?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Laugh all you want about tort reform and foreign object in food lawsuits. But the truth is that biting into a hard object and chipping your tooth because some idiot didn't use enough care to remove it from the sandwich, sucks.

Just wait till they do enact tort reform and limit these types of suits which in reality act as a private form of regulation on bad behavior (don't want to get sued, use care in preparing food). Then, when you or some other person making fun of this guy (God forbid) bite into a sandwich and ingest a piece of glass or other object, and can't do anything about it other than suffer, you will think these cases aren't so stupid after all.

Anonymous said...

Interesting article in CNN about FBI misconduct. Saucy!

Anonymous said...

Dave,
Don't you think it's a little ironic to post the story of Kucinich's BS lawsuit four inches away from a half-dozen banner ads for personal injury lawyers?

David Oscar Markus said...

1:57 -- fair point.

10:23 -- don't get me wrong; I'm against tort reform. I just don't think this sort of headline grabbing lawsuit is helping any.

Anonymous said...

My wife found a bolt (1 inch long by about a 1/4 inch thick) in a quesadilla at Beverly Hills Cafe once. Had she bit into it without looking first that would have caused very real damage. Foreign object in food cases are no joke.

That said, the Congressman's lawsuit does seem a little funny.